Today, we are talking about how much you should budget for maintenance on your rental property. There are two things to keep in mind; there is a functional depreciation rate on various systems in the house, and the age of the house has a direct impact on what you’ll spend.
Ongoing maintenance will be required on your home’s systems, including the roof, heating and air conditioning units, plumbing, electrical systems and appliances. The amount you need to budget from year to year depends on how old the home is. The older the property is, the higher that number is going to be. Older properties are more expensive to care for and maintain.
A fairly new property will only experience about $50 a month in maintenance and repair expenses on a per unit basis. This is the average on a three bedroom, two bath home. If the property is less than five years old, there are very few problems. When you have a 50 year old house, there are going to be more maintenance calls. Systems are aging and the whole house is getting older. Electrical systems will end up with panel problems and breakers will give out. Eventually, these things have to be replaced.
If your home is a 10 year old property, the numbers do jump. You’ll need to budget more like $85 to $100 per month in overall maintenance costs. Inevitably, you’ll have to repaint at intervals and there will be more appliances giving out at the seven to 10 year mark, including microwaves and dishwashers.
After 15 or 20 years, you need to begin budgeting for roof replacements and repairs. This is why the price of homes on a square foot basis goes down as a property ages. There is a lot of available land to build on
We minimize these costs by using quality vendors to give us good service for lower than yellow book rates. You don’t want to pay for something that will have to be redone later.
If you have any questions, or you need help budgeting for maintenance items, please contact us at Independence Realty.